"Mr. Warmth" forged a career when he turned the tables on his hecklers, going on to make fun of everyone he encountered — even Frank Sinatra.

Don Rickles, the rapid-fire insult machine who for six decades earned quite a living making fun of people of all creeds and colors and everyone from poor slobs to Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 90.

The legendary comic died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles of kidney failure, publicist Paul Shefrin announced.

Sarcastically nicknamed “Mr. Warmth,” Rickles had mock disdain for stars, major public figures and all those who paid to see him, tweaking TV audiences and Las Vegas showroom crowds with his acerbic brand of takedown comedy. A good guy and devoted husband away from the stage, Rickles the performer heartlessly laid into everyone he encountered — and they loved it.

After toiling in relative obscurity for years as a more conventional stand-up comedian, Rickles unwittingly discovered his biggest laughs came when he turned the tables on his hecklers. His career then skyrocketed after he insulted the hot-tempered Sinatra, who normally did not take kindly to such treatment.

When the superstar singer and actor walked into a Miami Beach club in 1957 where Rickles was performing, the comedian greeted the “Chairman of the Board” from the stage: “Make yourself at home Frank. Hit somebody.” Sinatra roared — with laughter.

With Sinatra’s endorsement, Rickles began his comedic assault on people famous and not so famous — Jews, Asians, African Americans, the Irish, Puerto Ricans, red-headed women, short guys, you name it — with tremendous results. He referred to stupid people as “hockey pucks,” and in 1959, he signed for his first Las Vegas appearance, in the lounge of the Hotel Sahara.

Gregg Allman, whose hard-jamming, bluesy sextet the Allman Brothers Band was the pioneering unit in the Southern rock explosion of the ‘70s, died Saturday due to currently unknown causes. He was 69.

With his older sibling, guitarist Duane Allman, the singer-keyboardist-guitarist-songwriter led one of the most popular concert attractions of the rock ballroom era; the group’s 1971 set “At Fillmore East,” recorded at Bill Graham’s New York hall, was a commercial breakthrough that showed off the band’s prodigious songcraft and instrumental strengths.

After Duane Allman’s death in a motorcycle accident weeks after the live album’s release, his younger brother led the band through four more stormy decades of playing and recording. The Allman Brothers Band’s latter-day history proved tumultuous, with other fatalities, disbandings, regroupings and very public battles with drugs and alcohol on the part of its surviving namesake.

Martin Landau, who won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's 1994 film Ed Wood, died Saturday at 89.

His publicists Dick Guttman and Rona Menashe confirmed his death to USA TODAY. They said in a statement that the veteran actor, who also was nominated for Academy Awards for his roles in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Tucker: The Man and His Dream, died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, "where he succumbed to unexpected complications during a short hospitalization."

Landau was the master of disguise in his role as Rollin Hand in the TV version of Mission: Impossible, during his three seasons on the show starting in 1966.

He also gained some measure of fame among Star Trek fans for a role he didn't play, pointy-eared starship Enterprise science officer, Mr. Spock. Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry had offered him the role, but Landau turned it down.

Jerry Lewis, the brash slapstick comic who became a pop culture sensation in his partnership with Dean Martin and then transformed himself into an auteur filmmaker of such comedic classics as “The Nutty Professor” and “The Bellboy,” has died in Las Vegas. He was 91.

I like this picture I saved to post and never got to it. What a long, successful life he had. Born at the right time for his humor and talent. I always looked forward to watching his Labor Day MD Marathons, seeing all the "movie stars" was a treat.

Walter Becker, Co-Founder of Steely Dan, Dies at 67By The New York Times | September 3, 2017

Walter Becker, left and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan in 2008 at a cancer benefit concert in New York.

Walter Becker, the guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the rock duo Steely Dan, one of the most successful and adventurous groups of the 1970s and early ’80s, died on Sunday. He was 67. His death was announced on his official website, which gave no other details. He lived in Maui, Hawaii.

Mr. Becker had missed performances in Los Angeles and New York earlier this year. Donald Fagen, the band’s other co-founder and lead singer, told Billboard last month that Mr. Becker had been “recovering from a procedure, and hopefully he’ll be fine very soon.” He gave no other details.

Steely Dan had little use for rock’s excesses, creating instead a sophisticated, jazz-inflected sound with tricky harmonies. Mr. Becker was the primary arranger.

Mr. Becker, left, and Mr. Fagen in Los Angeles in 1977.

Starting in 1972, after Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen had met at Bard College, the group produced hit singles like “Do It Again,” ‘Reelin’ In the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Deacon Blues,” as well as a raft of critically lauded albums, including “Pretzel Logic,” “The Royal Scam,” “Aja” and “Gaucho,” the latter two widely regarded as their most artistically accomplished.

The typically calm tempos of Steely Dan’s music held unlikely musical twists and inventive lyrics on an eclectic range of topics, among them stock-market crashes, Puerto Rican immigration, junkies, cheating lovers, a space alien and a suicidal couch potato.

Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen went their own ways for much of the 1980s, producing solo albums. They reunited in 2000 with “Two Against Nature,” which earned a Grammy Award for album of the year.

Steely Dan has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide, and the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

In recent years Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen have toured extensively with a large band and backup singers. Last fall they had an extended run at the Beacon Theater in New York, in which each evening was devoted to the songs from a single Steely Dan album.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Playboy founder Hugh M. Hefner, the pipe-smoking hedonist who revved up the sexual revolution in the 1950s and built a multimedia empire of clubs, mansions, movies and television, symbolized by bow-tied women in bunny costumes, has died at age 91.

Hefner died of natural causes at his home surrounded by family on Wednesday night, Playboy said in a statement.

As much as anyone, Hefner helped slip sex out of the confines of plain brown wrappers and into mainstream conversation.

In 1953, a time when states could legally ban contraceptives, when the word “pregnant” was not allowed on “I Love Lucy,” Hefner published the first issue of Playboy, featuring naked photos of Marilyn Monroe (taken years earlier) and an editorial promise of “humor, sophistication and spice.” The Great Depression and World War II were over and America was ready to get undressed.

Playboy soon became forbidden fruit for teenagers and a bible for men with time and money, primed for the magazine’s prescribed evenings of dimmed lights, hard drinks, soft jazz, deep thoughts and deeper desires. Within a year, circulation neared 200,000. Within five years, it had topped 1 million.

By the 1970s, the magazine had more than 7 million readers and had inspired such raunchier imitations as Penthouse and Hustler. Competition and the internet reduced circulation to less than 3 million by the 21st century, and the number of issues published annually was cut from 12 to 11. In 2015, Playboy ceased publishing images of naked women, citing the proliferation of nudity on the internet.

[..]"On behalf of the Tom Petty family we are devastated to announce the untimely death of our father, husband, brother, leader and friend Tom Petty," Petty's manager said in a statement. "He died peacefully surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends."

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers just wrapped their 40th anniversary tour at the Hollywood Bowl last week.

Petty was born in Gainesville, FL, on Oct. 20, 1950. Despite his easy-going, affable persona, Petty endured a rough childhood, living in poverty with an alcoholic, abusive father and a mother who was in fear of her husband. But a childhood handshake with Elvis Presley in the '50s piqued his interest in rock n' roll, and at the age of 17, inspired by the Beatles and the Byrds, Petty dropped out of high school to play rock with his band, Mudcrutch. After that band broke up, Petty and several of its members formed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which catapulted him to the forefront of rock music for the next 40 years. (Mudcrutch reformed in 2007 and released two studio albums, 2008's self-titled and 2016's 2, his final studio effort.)

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' self-titled album dropped in 1976, and although it would eventually go Gold and produce two classic rock radio staples with the singles "Breakdown" and "American Girl," the album (and those singles) weren't big hits upon initial release ("Breakdown" would later peak at No. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 after being re-released). 1978's You're Gonna Get It! fared slightly better commercially, but it was the band's third album, 1979's Damn the Torpedoes!, that found Petty break through to massive success. That No. 2-peaking, triple Platinum album produced two top 20 hits with "Refugee" and "Don't Do Me Like That."

While new wave and synth-pop took hold in the '80s, Petty stuck to his no-frills heartland rock style while still appealing to a young fan base. Platinum albums, massive tours and hit singles (including the No. 3-peaking duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" with Stevie Nicks) followed, and he began to branch out creatively from the Hearbreakers as the decade came to a close.

After joining George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne in the supergroup-to-end-all-supergroups Traveling Wilburys – whose 1988 debut hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200 – Petty continued to work with Lynne on his solo debut, 1989's Full Moon Fever. It would prove to be his most blockbuster release since Damn the Torpedoes! a decade earlier, going five-times Platinum, hitting No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and producing arguably his best-known song, the inescapable "Free Fallin'," a No. 7 Hot 100 hit. Within the space of two years, Petty followed his runaway hit solo LP with another Traveling Wilburys album as well as a new Heartbreakers album. Barely slowing his pace throughout the next three decades, Petty continued releasing albums, whether with the Heartbreakers, solo or Mudcrutch. [...]Petty was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Australian guitarist and AC/DC co-founder Malcolm Young has died aged 64 after a long battle with dementia.

He died peacefully on Saturday with his family nearby, a statement said.

Young will be remembered for his powerful rhythm guitar riffs that were instrumental in propelling the Sydney heavy rock group to stardom.

Three Young brothers have been part of AC/DC's history, including lead guitarist Angus. Producer George Young died in October.

"Renowned for his musical prowess, Malcolm was a songwriter, guitarist, performer, producer and visionary who inspired many," the statement read.

"From the outset, he knew what he wanted to achieve and, along with his younger brother, took to the world stage giving their all at every show. Nothing less would do for their fans."

After forming AC/DC in 1973, the Young brothers were credited as co-writers on every song the band recorded by the band between their 1975 debut High Voltage through to 2014's Rock or Bust.

Malcolm was born in 1953 in Glasgow before his family emigrated to Australia when he was 10. His family confirmed he was suffering from dementia in 2014.

He wrote much of the band's the material that enabled AC/DC to become one of the biggest heavy rock bands, including Back In Black, Highway to Hell, and You Shook Me All Night Long.

The group is estimated to have sold more than 200 million records worldwide, including 71.5 million albums in the US.

A statement by Angus Young on the AC/DC website praises Malcolm Young's "enormous dedication and commitment" which made him "the driving force behind the band" who "always stuck to his guns and did and said exactly what he wanted".

"As his brother it is hard to express in words what he has meant to me during my life, the bond we had was unique and very special. He leaves behind an enormous legacy that will live on forever.

David Cassidy, pop culture idol of the 1970s, died Tuesday in a Florida hospital. The musician and actor was 67.

His publicist JoAnn Geffen confirmed his death, with a statement from his family. “On behalf of the entire Cassidy family, it is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father, our uncle, and our dear brother, David Cassidy. David died surrounded by those he loved, with joy in his heart and free from the pain that had gripped him for so long. Thank you for the abundance and support you have shown him these many years.”

He had been hospitalized for several days with organ failure. Cassidy announced his diagnosis with dementia in early 2017. He performed at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York in March, talking about his dementia, and said his arthritis made playing guitar an ordeal.

With pretty-boy good looks and a long mane of dark hair, Cassidy was one every girl’s favorite teen crush in the early 1970s and drew screaming crowds at concert appearances. David Cassidy was part of a showbusiness family that included his father, Tony-winning actor Jack Cassidy, stepmother Shirley Jones, half-brother Shaun Cassidy and daughter, actress Katie Cassidy.

Raised in New Jersey, Cassidy moved to Los Angeles in 1969 after starring in a Broadway musical that closed after only four performances. In 1970, after signing with Universal, Cassidy took on the role of older brother Keith Partridge in “The Partridge Family.” Keith was the son of Shirley Partridge, who was played by Jones.

The ABC sitcom was loosely based on real-life family musical act the Cowsills, and ran from 1970 to 1974. The show became popular for its squeaky queen portrayal of life on the road as a family rock band in a brightly painted bus. In addition to Cassidy and Jones, “The Partridge Family” starred Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce and Suzanne Crough as the family’s other children, and Dave Madden as manager Ruben Kincaid.